The former Main Street School in Port Washington reopened its doors in 1995 as a multipurpose community center called the Jeanne Rimsky Theater, saved by a group effort to halt its demolition nearly a decade after the class bell rang for the final time.
Fast-forward 20 years and the Rimsky Theater is still kickin,’ still drawing acts big and small under the Landmark on Main Street moniker and the crowds to match.
Landmark kicks off its 20th anniversary season on September 25 with comedian Colin Quinn, fresh off his summer’s one-man show, the Jerry Seinfeld-directed “New York Story,” and turn in “Trainwreck,” alongside Amy Schumer and Bill Hader.
The show is the first of 26 to grace the Landmark stage for the 2015-16 season, which includes sketch comedy from the Upright Citizens Brigade (January 8) and Second City (February 5), music from Darlene Love (December 5) and Tom Rush and John Sebastian (April 3) and performances of classic children’s books “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” (March 20) and “Are You My Mother?” (April 9).
Tickets for “Friends of Landmark Members” went on sale August 3. Tickets for the general public will go on sale September 1 through the Landmark box office or online at landmarkonmainstreet.org.
Throughout the year, the theater houses the Port Washington Youth Council’s Teen center, the Port Washington Children’s Center and the Parent Resource Center.
It has also been the site of a free lecture series, “Conversations from Main Street,” which has hosted sports figures Mary Carillo, Ron Darling and Patrick McEntoe; authors Nelson DeMille, Susan Isaacs, Lenore Skenazy; and political figures, New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, when he was the state attorney general.
